FOXBORO, Mass. — If momentum has any meaning in the NFL, then the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won 11 straight games, have a clear advantage over the New England Patriots.
The Patriots finished the regular season going 2-4 as injuries ravaged their offense and defense after starting undefeated. Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith has sung the praises of momentum multiple times in recent weeks, including after his team’s 30-0 win over the Houston Texans on Saturday, but the Patriots aren’t buying it.
“No, I just look at this week and you look at Green Bay, who… lost their last two regular season games, they were terrible on third down, and then you could argue they looked the best offensively out of all those teams,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said Monday. “It’s tough. I think the regular season is obviously important to see what teams are doing, but when you turn the page and you go into the playoffs you’ve got to win that night, that day, go out there and beat another team.
“I think obviously for Kansas City coming off the 10-game winning streak in the regular season, they looked just as good against Houston playing good football, and I think that’s more important than the so-called momentum is. … You have to watch the regular season to learn about a team and prepare, but I’m not a big believer in you played last week, and because you play well it just happens again.”
Belichick has shrugged off multiple questions about momentum since the Patriots entered the postseason. He said Tuesday the Patriots’ goal is simple against the Chiefs: “Prepare this week to play our best game.”
“I don’t really care about any other season or any other game — just the one that’s coming up,” Belichick said last week. “That’s the only one we’re focused on. I don’t really care about what happened. It’s pretty irrelevant to me.”
Only one NFL team has closed the season 2-4 in its last six games and won the Super Bowl, according to Kevin Duffy of MassLive.com’s research: the 2012 Baltimore Ravens. There have been six Super Bowl champions to finish the season 3-3, 15 who ended 4-2, 18 finished 5-1 and nine ended the season 6-0. But that might have nothing to do with momentum and more to do with the fact that good teams win games, regardless of the time of year.
“I don’t know how much that comes into play,” special teams captain Matthew Slater said. “I think, obviously, they’re going to be coming in confident, as they should. They’ve been playing at an extremely high level, but at the end of the day, it’s not really about momentum. It’s about executing on Saturday, and whatever team executes better and makes more plays is probably going to leave the game happy.”
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sportsz Images
